Travel Series: U.S.A. part 2

Disclaimer: Memory on various details may be faulty; it's certainly foggy!

Me at 17 in Times Square.

Back in February this year, I shared part 1 of my U.S.A. 1998 travel story here. I'm back now to continue the story. To recap, we'd arrived in Chicago and had arranged for our next car from Auto Driveaway. This car would take us from Chicago to Philadelphia. But with a bit of time to spare, we planned on visiting some other places first.

Heading from Illinois into Indiana, we passed through Gary where I was reminded of the famous Jackson family. Their music (in particular Michael's) has always meant a lot to me. I remember thinking about Michael Jackson growing up in that place I was seeing out the car window, albeit under cover of darkness. From Indiana we passed into Ohio, then Pennsylvania. I bought a Dean Koontz book in Youngstown (STRANGERS, an old favourite I felt the need to read again at that time), and a pack of playing cards (which I collect when travelling). Finally, we got to New York City.

Pretty NYC!

Central Park in snow.

In my travel journal I wrote about visits to Burger King, the Statue of Liberty, and the cop shop where I tried to sort out more info on 5 traffic infringements I'd acquired at a busy Manhattan intersection. No, not kidding. I still have that paperwork somewhere in my files. Ahem...! We also went to Planet Hollywood, where I was highly indignant about the enforced gratuity (we don't really tip in Australia unless service is exceptional, and even then it's not always guaranteed - differences in minimum wage and all that). I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh, and up one of the Twin Towers (sadly got no pictures of the view just yet, I did take them but they aren't scanned. For the record, the view was amazing!).

My New York homeyette impression.

We left N.Y.C. via the ferry to Staten Island. According to my travel journal, it cost us $3.00. And we stopped for petrol at an Exxon station. hehe

Next, we went to Philadelphia, where we met a guy called Chris Manos who played in a ska band (I Googled him recently and found a few articles about him, or a guy I think might have been him! here and here). Then I wound up stalking him on the internet to see if he still existed. Still not sure he does, but I hope so! Chris was cool enough to give us a lift, as we had dropped our car off and needed to get places in other ways! He also played us a tape his band had made, and I'm not entirely sure that the band was one called Public Service, but it could well have been!

New York City graffiti.

Aaaaanyway, Philly was where we got our next Driveaway Car. And that's where the next leg of the journey began. I will write about that next time. ;)

Planet Hollywood.

P.S. Yes, all these photos are from NYC. I haven't scanned all my photos from the trip yet, so my choice of decoration is a bit limited!